finding your best ticket value at the ballpark
I am going to talk about something that falls directly under the umbrella of being a savvy fan, but won’t necessarily save you any money. Many of us watch baseball games from the upper deck, which in the modern stadium isn’t usually a bad experience. I have found that many stadiums have enhanced views of the surrounding skylines and scenery from the “cheap seats.”
Unfortunately, one of the downsides of sitting in the upper deck (in most cases) is the constant flow of pedestrians blocking your view. Honestly the same is true for field level in many cases, especially when the sections have 50+ rows with about 30 seats per row – do the math. I guess my plea to you, as a fellow baseball fan, is to wait until the middle or end of an inning before entering or exiting your seat. I doubt my words will make much of a difference, so I digress. Understanding the fact that at most ballparks, a large portion of the fans have almost no idea that a baseball game is happening in their presence; you should plan accordingly.
Here are my tips for not letting oblivious, habitually late, overactive bladder suffering fans ruin your next baseball game:
1. Sit Behind The Plate
When sitting in the upper deck, there is more than one advantage to sitting in the section right behind home plate. Envision that you are right behind the plate it will be difficult for people in the aisles to block your view of the action. This is especially true if you are sitting in the middle of the row. While upper deck seats behind the plate are traditionally a few bucks more than there down the line counterparts, I would contend that it is worth it in most cases.
2. Avoid aisle seats closest to the plate
Imagine you are sitting on any level, between first base and the right fielder. If you get aisle seats closest to first base in that section, you will have an incessant flow of traffic in your face for the majority of the game. Up until the 4th inning it will be confused fans and an accompanying usher helping them find there seats because they have just arrived. Starting in the 6th you will see people head for the house no matter what the score. Combine that with bathroom and concession trips along with vendors and you have missed half the game. (Let me note that this hasn’t been my experience at every stadium. Stadiums with a high level of intensity and a reputation for knowledgeable fans do not have this problem nearly to the same degree.)
In my example above, a better choice is to request aisle seats on the side of the row closer to right field. You will still have people walking by you, but this time they will be on your right and the infield will be to your left. God help you if a ball gets hit to the right field corner, but at least you have a generally unobstructed view of the infield where most of the action happens.
Unfortunately, one of the downsides of sitting in the upper deck (in most cases) is the constant flow of pedestrians blocking your view. Honestly the same is true for field level in many cases, especially when the sections have 50+ rows with about 30 seats per row – do the math. I guess my plea to you, as a fellow baseball fan, is to wait until the middle or end of an inning before entering or exiting your seat. I doubt my words will make much of a difference, so I digress. Understanding the fact that at most ballparks, a large portion of the fans have almost no idea that a baseball game is happening in their presence; you should plan accordingly.
Here are my tips for not letting oblivious, habitually late, overactive bladder suffering fans ruin your next baseball game:
1. Sit Behind The Plate
When sitting in the upper deck, there is more than one advantage to sitting in the section right behind home plate. Envision that you are right behind the plate it will be difficult for people in the aisles to block your view of the action. This is especially true if you are sitting in the middle of the row. While upper deck seats behind the plate are traditionally a few bucks more than there down the line counterparts, I would contend that it is worth it in most cases.
2. Avoid aisle seats closest to the plate
Imagine you are sitting on any level, between first base and the right fielder. If you get aisle seats closest to first base in that section, you will have an incessant flow of traffic in your face for the majority of the game. Up until the 4th inning it will be confused fans and an accompanying usher helping them find there seats because they have just arrived. Starting in the 6th you will see people head for the house no matter what the score. Combine that with bathroom and concession trips along with vendors and you have missed half the game. (Let me note that this hasn’t been my experience at every stadium. Stadiums with a high level of intensity and a reputation for knowledgeable fans do not have this problem nearly to the same degree.)
In my example above, a better choice is to request aisle seats on the side of the row closer to right field. You will still have people walking by you, but this time they will be on your right and the infield will be to your left. God help you if a ball gets hit to the right field corner, but at least you have a generally unobstructed view of the infield where most of the action happens.
3. Sit in a low row
Again, sounds obvious but I want to convince you why sitting in row A is more important than you might think. (Please see my stadium specific guides for instances where row A might have the opposite effect). Sitting in row #1 on the field level is not something that you probably do frequently, but sitting in the first row of the upper deck is usually doable. The concept of what I am saying revolves around the fact that the less people that are in front of you, the less people that will stand up and move in front of you. This is especially true on lower levels where the concourse is located at the top of the section. Everybody is going to get up and walk back to go to the bathroom, so if you are sitting in the back row there is a potential for everybody in front of you to walk back and block your view for a moment.
In most if not all upper decks you have to walk down to get to the concourse. At many stadiums, like Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, the view level is elevated so those in row A don’t have people walking back and forth in front of them. These are also ideal in Cincinnati because people making the trip up the steps will actually enter the upper deck behind you and never block your view. You may think I am making a mountain out of a proverbial molehill, but it makes a huge difference in the experience – especially if you care about baseball.
In my Cincinnati example, I would move from the behind the plate to down the lines in the upper deck if it meant I could sit in row A. If I can’t sit in the first 3 rows of the section, you will then find me near the top of the stadium. Once you are that high, what is the difference in row M and row Z? Not much, in my opinion. The benefit of being near the top vs. in the middle is just that less people will walk up past you, so you can have fewer obstructions.
Translating For Your Ballpark.
As I mentioned earlier, most of this concepts are applicable across all Major League ballparks. I do my best to mention exceptions on the specific ballpark guides if that is the case. You may be familiar with the layout with your local ballpark, but if not you just need to make sure that the first row of the upper deck is elevated enough to be able to see over people walking east and west in front of you. You can just pay attention next time you go to a game, or most teams have a great feature called “Seating and Pricing” on their website which lets you click on a section and see the view from there. This may give you some insight as to how to best apply these concepts and minimize the impact of people who just can’t seem to sit down at a ballgame.